


As Galatea to Pygmalion

by apolloadama



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Aromanticism, Casual Sex, Clarke goes full My Side Of The Mountain, F/F, F/M, Multi, Panic Attacks, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 07:37:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4738058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolloadama/pseuds/apolloadama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke leaves Camp Jaha and rebuilds herself. Octavia and Lincoln help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Galatea to Pygmalion

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks to Sarah (quigonjesus at tumblr) for reading and beta-ing this for me when she could.

She disappeared. It wasn’t hard to do. The woods were dark and deep, and most of the people at Camp Jaha were afraid of them. Those who weren’t knew not to chase her. The people who made the woods scary--the Grounders--they also left her alone. Clarke supposed there was no longer a truce with Lexa’s people, but she guessed Lexa wouldn’t order an attack while Camp Jaha stayed tucked quietly within its own borders. It was a situation she thought about as if it were happening very, very far away, though, or as if it were a problem she’d had in a dream; that was all, nothing real to worry about.

Clarke found herself at the river where she’d been for the first time so many painful days ago with Finn and Monty and Jasper and Octavia. She thought of the moment when Octavia had slipped out of her clothes and jumped into the water. It was the last unblemished thing she could remember. 

She turned and walked west along the river, away from any ground familiar to her. Beside her the river flowed, and she followed.

\---

Clarke didn’t know what she was looking for until she found it. It was a large tree and must have been even when the bombs fell. Part of the trunk near the ground was hollowed out, and Clarke could see the traces of the many animals that had lived--and probably still lived--in this tree. She thought if she found enough leafy branches she could cover the entrance at night and be safe from most things. The knife she carried tucked up her sleeve could handle anything else.

She set to work methodically, clearing out all the abandoned nests and animal droppings from the hollow and then laying a bed of sand and leaves on the floor. She’d slept in far less comfortable places. 

It took the rest of the day to clear a space to build a fire several feet from the tree. She was careful and surrounded the fire pit with a circle of rocks, wet from the river. A further circle of sand surrounded that. It was unlikely a fire could spread accidentally. She wouldn’t build one tonight; no point without food to cook and if she was sleeping inside the trunk.

Satisfied with a job well done, Clarke climbed into the tree trunk and pulled the branches she’d collected over the opening, so she could just see pinpoints of stars through clusters of leaves and sticks. She wondered, briefly, what the Grounders knew or believed about stars, and then she was asleep.

\---

Five days passed as Clarke slowly and painstakingly taught herself to fish and trap small animals. She checked everything carefully for signs of radiation poisoning, but she knew there was no way to be certain. 

On the sixth day it occurred to her that she wouldn’t be checking for radiation in her food if she didn’t want to live and thrive. Some of the weight heavy on her chest lifted, just slightly, in that brief moment of clarity.

\---

On the seventh day Clarke came to know boredom as a nuisance instead of a relief. Her brain raced and ticked and ate at her, demanding stimulation. Clarke had explored the woods around her tree for several miles in every direction, and in that time had collected a decent amount of berries and nuts, which she’d planned to keep for food. 

Instead, on a whim, she took double handfuls of the blue berries and mashed them on a smooth flat rock she’d been using to skin animals. She ended with lumpy blue jam that to her delight was amenable to spreading. She painted the scene of the river cutting through the woods, simple and childish and messy, but in the moment of adding the shadow under a tree she found quiet in her mind, and was at peace.

\---

On the eighth day Clarke woke up and found three wooden bowls sitting in a row by the fire pit, with an actual paintbrush next to them. Clarke sucked in a breath and picked up the brush reverentially. It was essentially hair tightly bound and adhered to a wooden stick that had been smoothed down, but it would work better than fingers. When she pried open the bark lid on the first bowl she found what was clearly red paint. The other two bowls held black and yellow paint. 

She sat back and struggled not to cry. There was a tight, strained feeling filling her chest and making her breath come short. She didn’t know who the paint was from, but it reminded her of the gifts Wells used to give her on the Ark.  _I don’t know that girl anymore_ , Clarke thought. The Clarke Griffin who lived on the Ark was a stranger to her now. And Wells...

Clarke wiped the tears and snot from her face with her sleeve just as she heard the crunch of sand and gravel under the footsteps of someone behind her. She twisted, expecting to see Jasper or Monty, but it was--

“Lincoln.” 

“Clarke,” he replied, tilting his head in greeting. 

She was used to seeing him with a streak of paint over his face, white or black depending on what role he was playing, but Lincoln was unmarked aside from his tattoos. She recognized in that instant Lexa’s betrayal had hurt personally more people than just her, and she felt a pang of guilt. 

“Did you see who left these?” she asked, gesturing a hand at the paint bowls. 

“They are from me,” he replied, unmoving. 

She was surprised. He stared at her steadily, his face betraying no emotion. Clarke didn’t know what to say. She remembered, suddenly, Octavia mentioning Lincoln’s sketchbook offhand once.

“You’re an artist too,” Clarke said to him. 

“I draw,” he said. “I wouldn’t say I’m an artist.”

“I bet Octavia would,” Clarke said, remembering the starry look in Octavia’s eyes when she talked about Lincoln’s sketches. 

Lincoln let half a smile cross his face, but didn’t say anything.

Clarke dipped a finger into the red paint and examined it. “How did you make this?” she asked Lincoln. “Is it berries? I couldn’t find any this shade of red.”

It was as if these questions signaled he could be at ease. Lincoln nodded, and walked over, sitting down next to her on the sand. “These berries don’t grow near here. You have to walk two days in that direction,” and he motioned toward the south. “And use boiled water to get the most color from them, and drain them. Then add flour to make it thicker.”

“Flour?” Clarke asked. “Like for bread?”

Lincoln clearly held back a laugh at her question. “Yes ... you can make bread with flour. But you can use it for other things too. Did you not have flour on the Ark?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke said. “I didn’t work in Agro station ... I think most of our food was made from soy.”

“Soy...” Lincoln tested the word in his mouth. “What is soy?”

“Beans, I think,” Clarke replied absently, picking up the bowl of yellow paint. “What is this made from? Are there ...  _yellow_  berries?”

Lincoln shook his head. “Flower petals.”

She set the bowl down and rubbed at the red paint now staining her fingertip. It wouldn’t come off. She rubbed harder. 

That tight feeling in her chest started coming back, and she sucked the finger in her mouth, pulled it out and found it was still stained, grimaced and felt hot tears prickling her eyes, didn’t know why she was so upset, found she couldn’t pull in breaths deep enough, vision narrowing in on the red, all she could see was red staining her skin, a permanent mark, she sucked the finger into her mouth again and started biting down--

Lincoln grabbed her hand and pulled the finger out from between her teeth. He held her hand in both of his and covered it so she couldn’t see the red stain, then ducked his head down so he could catch her eyes with his. 

“You’re okay,” he said slowly. 

She took in shuddering breaths and rubbed her eyes with her other hand, incredibly embarrassed. Still covering her stained hand with one of his, Lincoln reached out and dipped his fingers into the yellow paint, and brought the paint back to spread it over her fingers. 

The rhythmic movement of his fingers rubbing hers pulled her back, and she felt her breathing slow, able again to fill her lungs to capacity. Lincoln let go of her hand and she smiled at the bright yellow that coated her fingers. The fingertip where the red had been was darker than the rest, but it looked like orange, the color of the sunsets she’d enjoyed since she fell from the sky.

“Thank you,” she whispered. 

“We have to live with our monsters, Clarke,” Lincoln said to her. “But we don’t let them consume us.”

“I  _killed_  all those people, Lincoln,” she said, her voice cracking.

“I killed people too,” he said simply. “It was war. It was survival. It was them or you. They would kill the ones we love.”

Clarke immediately saw her mother’s face, and knew Lincoln also meant Octavia; and remembering how she left things with Octavia, Clarke felt immense guilt. Octavia at least must still think her a monster, for letting the missile hit the village. She’d said as much to Clarke, before they went up against the Mountain.

“How is Octavia?” she asked, trying to keep it light, but knowing Lincoln heard the anguish in her voice.

He smiled softly. “She is more than I ever thought I could have.”

“No, I mean, how--”

“I know what you meant,” he said. “She will tell you how she is.”

Clarke’s heart fluttered nervously, and her eyes scanned the tree line. “Is she here?”

He shook his head. “Not today. Today I brought you paint and the brush, because I saw you wanted it. Maybe tomorrow Octavia will come.”

Clarke nodded, and Lincoln made to stand up. She grabbed his elbow before he could and said quietly, urgently, “Lincoln, could you--”

He stared at her impassively, waiting.

She smiled at him. “Could you show me how to make paint? And the brush? Can you show me how to ... ?”  _Create_ , her brain supplied.  _Instead of destroy._  

“Of course,” he said, and he sounded pleased that she’d asked. “And charcoal. I can teach how to make that from wood. I draw more than I paint. It’s faster. Not as messy.”

Clarke nodded, letting go of him. He stood up, took a few steps away, then turned.

“But sometimes ... messy is better,” he said, and then a few seconds later had disappeared into the trees. 

\---

Octavia didn’t come the next day, and neither did Lincoln. Clarke ate some nuts in the morning then spent two hours looking for a smooth piece of driftwood she could paint on. She made a small sound of satisfaction when she spied one, finally, and felt almost cheerful on her walk back to the tree. 

She sat cross-legged by the fire and started painting. When she finished the eyes she stopped and stared, and realized she wasn’t sure whose they were. After several minutes of hesitation, Clarke decided perhaps a peace offering was what she needed, and painted the curve of Octavia’s nose under the eyes. 

The colors Lincoln had supplied were exactly right, Clarke thought. Octavia was bright and warm, with a fire always burning in her chest. Had Octavia been like that on the Ark, smoldering under the floor? Or had the Earth brought that out of her? 

Clarke found herself wanting to ask Bellamy about it, and abruptly knew whose eyes she’d really painted.

\---

Clarke woke to the smell of meat cooking, and she bolted upright, worried she’d forgotten to put out the fire--but no, she remembered pouring the sand over the last of the flames, so...

Pushing aside the branches, she saw Octavia sitting facing the fire she must have built herself, holding over it two sticks pierced through what looked like rabbit. She was humming under her breath, and didn’t stop though she surely knew Clarke was awake and watching.

Clarke saw that Octavia had found her painting, laying on the log next to her. Clarke walked up and sat on the other side of Octavia, saying nothing. She stared up at the stars, lost counting all the constellations she knew.

She felt herself beginning to fall back asleep when Octavia nudged her and handed her one of the sticks. Clarke saw that the meat had been stuffed with different vegetables and herbs before being grilled, and the smell was unbelievably good. She hadn’t eaten since the nuts the previous morning, and her stomach growled loudly. Octavia heard and laughed. 

“Lincoln taught me how to cook like that,” she said, blowing on her own dinner to cool it. 

“He knows how to do a lot of things,” Clarke commented, following Octavia’s lead and blowing to cool the meat. She was ravenous, but knew she’d regret biting into it still fire-hot.

Octavia hummed again--not a song, but a suggestive sound. “That he does.” She glanced over at Clarke and raised an eyebrow, grinning.

“Oh my god,” Clarke said, laughing, then tentatively bit a small piece off. She moaned as she chewed, at how good it tasted. 

“Glad you like it,” Octavia said. 

“Thank you, for sharing this with me.”

Octavia nodded, then said, softly, “On the Ark I wasn’t counted as a person, you know? I didn’t exist. That meant I didn’t get food rations. Mom and Bellamy spent sixteen years sharing their rations with me, all of us going a little bit hungry. They shared with me, and they never made me feel bad or guilty for it. I did anyway, because how could a person not, in that situation? But they did it with their hands open. Mom raised us like that ... always with open hands.” She snorted. “I guess some people would look at that and see beggars. But that wasn’t ... we shared everything, never giving it a second thought.” Octavia’s head dropped and she drew a pattern into the sand absentmindedly, then continued, “But then they floated Mom and I went to prison. Since then our hands have been closed.” 

“Octavia, I...”

Octavia glanced at her sidelong, a small smile appearing on her face. “Lincoln was raised that way too. Hands always open. Always sharing with your family, your friends, your community.”

Clarke didn’t know what to say. She felt humbled and like any words wouldn’t be enough. Awkwardly, she said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Octavia replied.

They ate in silence for a couple minutes, then Clarke said, hesitantly, “You found the painting...”

“You’re very good,” Octavia replied. “Lincoln’ll be jealous.”

“Oh, no, I...”

“I’m kidding,” Octavia said, grinning again. “He’ll want to hang it up in a place of honor, probably over the front door or something.”

“Oh,” Clarke said softly, then tilted her head. “Where  _are_  you living now?”

“Lincoln has a place,” Octavia said, waving her hand in the direction Clarke had seen Lincoln walk off to before. “We live there together now.”

“Do you visit--”

“Sometimes I go to Camp Jaha,” Octavia said. “To see Bellamy, mainly.”

Clarke wanted to ask, desperately, about Bellamy, but she didn’t feel she had a right to. He’d asked her to stay, and she hadn’t. She couldn’t. 

Octavia finished eating and laid the stick down. She licked her fingers, then said to Clarke, “What you did was cruel.”

Clarke sighed, feeling heavy. She knew Octavia meant the missile. “I know.” 

Octavia stared into the fire. “It’s not something I think I can forgive you for.”

“You don’t have to--”

“No, I don’t have to forgive you, you’re right,” Octavia interrupted. “I’d like to, you know. I like you, Clarke. I like you a lot. I think you’re brave and beautiful and you care about the people you love more than anything. And I know you’ve been carrying a weight on you all alone since the day we came down here.”

“’Brave and beautiful and you care about the people you love more than anything,’” Clarke repeated, and Octavia looked over at her sharply. Clarke half-smiled and said, “You might as well be describing yourself.”

Octavia huffed a laugh. 

“One other thing in common, you know,” Clarke said, looking at her hands. “I can’t forgive myself either.”

Octavia nodded. “Good.”

Clarke looked at her abruptly, mouth open. She hadn’t expected that response.

“You can’t forgive yourself for things like that, I think,” Octavia said. “Lincoln’s gotten that into my head pretty well.”

“What he did wasn’t the same,” Clarke protested. “He was addicted--it was the drug--”

"No... no, it’s not the same,” Octavia agreed. “But don’t think I don’t know Lexa was the one pushing you to run, Clarke, to let those people die.”

Clarke cringed at the sound of Lexa’s name, but didn’t deny what Octavia said.

“I let her convince me,” Clarke murmured. “I’m still responsible.”

“Yeah, you are. But it was war. And it was a warrior’s move. Indra taught me that much, at least.”

“But I--”

“And you saved my brother,” Octavia whispered, then added as an afterthought, “and everyone else.”

“I don’t--”

“You kept Bellamy safe by doing it, and with him inside like you planned you saved everyone else.”

Clarke paused, taking that in, then said, lightly, “I’m pretty sure I had some help.”

Octavia smiled, looking down. “Yeah, but you were the brains of the operation, Clarke. We’d have all just been wandering in the woods without you leading us.”

Clarke swallowed, looked away, rubbed the back of her neck. Her heartbeat was hard and fast. “I can’t be that person anymore,” she whispered.

Octavia was going to tell her it was okay, she didn’t have to be like that anymore, didn’t have to be tough and smart and unfeeling, she could just let someone else be in charge, let Abby or Kane be chancellor and be a kid again, and it was the absolute last thing Clarke thought she could take, that pity, that kindness--that unwarranted kindness. She thought about jumping in the river, just to get away from that conversation.

But Octavia shook her head. She took Clarke’s hand and she stared in her eyes, and she said, “That is  _who you are._  I know it, you know it, Lincoln knows it, your mom, Raven, Bellamy, Jasper,  _Monty, Lexa, the Grounders, the fucking Mountain Men--_ we all know that’s who you are. It’s okay to need a break. But you’re a leader, and a thinker. You can’t stop being you. You can’t change it and you shouldn’t try, Clarke. ”

Clarke felt empty inside, like Octavia’s words had hollowed her out. Her hand went clammy in Octavia’s, the other one fluttering at her side. She felt tears in her eyes.

“It’s  _hard_ ,” Clarke whimpered, her voice cracking. The tears spilled down her cheeks. Octavia wiped them away.

“I know.” She pulled Clarke close and wrapped her arms around her, one hand in her hair, smoothing it the way Clarke had once seen Bellamy smooth Octavia’s hair. “I know it is,” Octavia whispered. “But you aren’t alone, Clarke. Even out here. You aren’t alone.”

Clarke nodded tearfully into Octavia’s shoulder. Octavia ran her hand over her hair softly, again and again, murmuring sweet things to her, and Clarke drifted.

\---

Octavia was gone when Clarke opened her eyes to a bright morning sky, but there was a heart drawn in the sand near Clarke and she smiled at it. She also realized the painting of Octavia was gone; she had taken it with her. The thought made Clarke feel warm.

A few hours later Clarke was working on a trap for rabbits, brow furrowed and lip bit between her teeth, frustrated that she couldn’t get it right. She tried one last time to set it up so the stick propping up the box would actually trip if something bumped it while still being sturdy enough to hold the box. Pulling her hand away tentatively and not seeing a wobble, Clarke started grinning--and then she saw the stick start to tilt and groaned in frustration as, sure enough, the box slipped over onto its side.

“Why is this so difficult?!” she griped to herself, and then jumped in her skin when Lincoln answered from behind her,

“Because that’s not a good trap.”

Clarke twisted and looked at him ruefully. “Thanks.”

Octavia was next to Lincoln, and she smiled. “It’s ineffective. Bad design.”

Clarke looked back grumpily at her box and stick and had to admit they were right. She felt a tightening in her chest, thinking that Finn would know how to build a good animal trap, with the high marks he got in Earth survival skills. But Finn wasn’t here now...

“Let us show you,” Octavia said gently. “Lincoln showed me good ones.”

“All right,” said Clarke. She added as an afterthought as she pushed herself up off the ground, “Thank you.”

“We need a big rock,” Lincoln said, and started off back toward the river. 

Clarke almost laughed, envisioning throwing a rock at a squirrel or something, but after all this time she knew better than to question the knowledge of the people who had survived for generations on the surface.

They found a rock Lincoln deemed the right size in the shallows of the river, 100 yards down from where Clarke lived. Lincoln hauled it out and set it on the ground, and then glanced at Octavia, who pulled out of her knapsack a long line of thin rope. Lincoln motioned Clarke closer, and then showed her the right knot to make a snaring noose from the rope, still with a lot of length on either end. Then he tied one end of the rope to the rock, and to the other a small stick of wood.

“How does this work?” Clarke asked, bewildered. 

Lincoln grinned at her expression, then explained: “This kills quickly, and it’s best for keeping the prey away from scavengers. See.”

He picked it all up and moved to a large boulder that was tucked against the riverbend, at a place where the water was four or five feet deep. Then he set the rock on the rope it was tied to, right at the edge of the boulder, and put the noose at a place where the boulder dipped lower to the water.

“Animals come here to drink,” he said. “They step in the noose, it pulls tight, trips the rope. The rock falls into the water, takes the animal with it, and the rest of the rope with the wood. Animal drowns. We come back later and pull it out from the wood here, which floats in the water.”

“And the water is cold and keeps the meat from decaying in the sun,” Octavia added.

Clarke nodded, impressed. Then she asked, “What happens if that... if whatever lives in the water that attacked you that first day...”

“If a water snake eats it, we are glad it didn’t eat us. And we set the trap again,” Lincoln said, chuckling. 

The rest of the day they showed her how to make other traps, most of which used rope. Clarke sighed.

“So how do you make rope?” she asked near sundown, tired and a little exasperated, feeling silly she’d ever thought a box propped up on a stick would work.

“I can show you that too,” Lincoln said congenially, and touched her elbow gently with his fingers. Octavia, standing at Clarke’s side, moved a little closer so their hips touched, ducking her head just slightly toward Clarke. She felt a little like she was being shepherded by them, like she was a wild thing they were working to tame. 

And, despite herself, any pride she might have had ... she really, really liked it.

\--

It was beyond calming, sitting next to Lincoln with her own canvas that he had so thoughtfully and generously given her, painting. They sat in silence for hours, the only sound the trickle of the river and the comforting scrape of brush bristles on the canvas. Octavia had no patience for it, and she usually wandered and hunted and brought something back for them to eat when they finally pulled out of their art-induced stupor, ravenous.

It was very hot, on this particular day--Clarke had lost count of how many days had gone by in the company of Lincoln and Octavia--and Clarke heard Octavia coming back through the woods, not trying to be quiet. She’d discovered Lincoln and Octavia had a terrifying game, where Octavia tried to sneak up on Lincoln and put a blade to his throat. Clarke was always taken off guard by Octavia appearing like quiet death in Lincoln’s shadow. 

Lincoln always knew she was coming. Clarke wondered if Lincoln could sense her presence. They were so in sync sometimes that they seemed like one person, each the other’s half. 

But now Octavia was coming heavily through the brush toward them. Clarke turned and watched as Octavia came out of the line of trees. Octavia had a pained expression on her face and Clarke half-rose, worried she was hurt.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m  _hot,”_ Octavia replied irritably, continuing forward without breaking her pace.

She dropped the dead rabbit she’d been carrying, not stopping, and pulled her jacket off, then her over-tunic. Lincoln turned as Octavia came up to them and smiled at her. Octavia still had that pained look on her face, and she started pulling her trousers off violently, kicking her boots to the side. Clarke grinned and was reminded of that first day again, of Octavia doing the same thing--stripping off like this to obviously prepare for a leap into the river. 

A few seconds later, and just like that first day, Octavia was down to underwear and a top. Clarke blushed, as transfixed now as she had been then, and glanced over at Lincoln, who watched Octavia appreciatively. 

“Clarke,” Octavia said brusquely, no-nonsense, eyeing the cool water. “Will it really bother you if I get naked?”

Clarke shot an alarmed look at Octavia, and then back at Lincoln, who was simply looking at her impassively. “Is that--are you okay with--?”

“It’s not my body,” Lincoln said, shrugging. 

Clarke looked back at Octavia and found herself shaking her head, gesturing for Octavia to do as she liked.

Octavia immediately stripped the shirt off and pulled her underwear off, kicking it to the side and then running and leaping into the river. Clarke had gotten just a flash of a look at her naked body, but she felt the heat in her head and between her legs. She ducked back to her painting and made quick, messy strokes, trying to will her brain not to think about Octavia like that. 

“She’s beautiful,” Lincoln said to Clarke, and Clarke’s hand paused over the painting. She glanced up at Lincoln, well aware how red her face must be.

“Yes,” Clarke said back, not sure how to respond.

“You desire her?” he asked, as casually as if remarking on the position of the sun in the sky.

Clarke froze, head pounding. She licked her lips. “Well, I--” She tried not to stutter, couldn’t think of what to say. The way Lincoln was looking at her expectantly, Clarke realized he’d be disappointed if she lied and said no. But she couldn’t bring herself to say it outright. 

“She’s beautiful,” Clarke finally said, repeating Lincoln’s words back to him. 

He was satisfied with this, and went back to painting. 

\--

Thirty minutes and a lot of splashing later, Octavia came out of the water, stretching unabashedly and lying down on the sand. Clarke tried not to be distracted, but couldn’t help looking. Octavia  _was_  beautiful, and Clarke was beginning to understand it was okay for her to acknowledge that--that her attraction to Octavia wasn’t a problem for either Octavia or Lincoln. 

Octavia seemed to fall asleep on the sand, and Clarke found herself re-absorbed by painting. After fifteen minutes, Lincoln looked over at her canvas and barked out a laugh. Clarke startled, and looked at what she’d been painting. It was Octavia’s form--the curve of her back, the fall of her dark hair over her shoulders. 

“Like minds,” Lincoln said, and gestured at his own painting. It was also of Octavia--of her face, open and warm. Clarke started giggling at the absurdity. 

“Well, she makes a good subject!” Clarke said, mock-defensively. Lincoln nodded back matter-of-factly.

“Who does?” Octavia asked, rolling over and sitting up.

“Guess,” Lincoln said to her, so sweetly that Clarke’s heart caught in her chest.

Octavia smirked and got up, walking over to her shirt and underwear, pulling them back on. Clarke relaxed a hair. Octavia came over and sat between them, but facing them. She motioned dramatically for them to hold their paintings up, and they both complied. 

She smiled at both of them, and dipped her fingers into the black paint, then drew on Lincoln’s canvas. He cried out and pulled it back, turning it over to see what she’d done. Clarke burst out laughing--Octavia had drawn a mustache on herself. 

“Looks nice,” Clarke said. 

“Thank you,” Octavia said primly, and dipped her fingers back into the paint, then leaned forward to touch Clarke’s face with them, just over her lips. Clarke knew she now had her own matching mustache, and she grinned.

“It’s a good look,” Lincoln said to her. Octavia painted a mustache on him too, and then leaned in closer and let him in turn paint a white flower on her forehead. He followed it with a kiss on her cheek. 

Clarke started to feel like maybe she should leave them alone, but Octavia, seemingly sensing this, snaked a hand around her ankle and anchored her. “Clarke, you need a flower too.”

Silently, Clarke let Lincoln paint a flower on her forehead too, and then he put the brush in her hand and they both looked at her expectantly. Clarke laughed and dipped the brush into the white paint, then painted the same flower on his forehead. 

“Now we all match,” Octavia said, satisfied, before standing again. She shivered and went over to her trousers, pulling them back on, and then the over-tunic. 

The sun was going down, and Clarke was suddenly fiercely, monstrously hungry. Her stomach growled audibly, and Lincoln’s eyebrows went up. A half-second later, his own stomach rumbled, and Clarke grinned.

“Time to eat,” she said.

Of course, skinning a rabbit and cooking it over a fire took a while. By the time it was ready Clarke was so hungry she thought she might have eaten it raw, but it had been worth the wait, to eat the cooked, seasoned meat around a fire next to Lincoln and Octavia. She felt a peace unlike anything she’d ever felt before, even on the Ark. She wondered what that was--if it was just being safe and full and sleepy, or if it was Lincoln and Octavia’s presence, or a combination of those things. Or maybe something else entirely.

After dinner, Octavia and Lincoln said goodnight and left into the night. 

As she fell asleep in the hollow of her tree, Clarke still felt that peace.

\--

Clarke had given up on seeing Octavia or Lincoln the next day as night fell and she built up a fire to roast the chestnuts she’d collected that morning. As the last streaks of sunset disappeared and the evening chill set in, Octavia slipped quietly onto the log next to her, holding her hands out to the fire and warming them.

“Hi,” Clarke said.

“Hey,” Octavia said back. 

“No Lincoln today?” 

“He went to see friends,” Octavia said, shrugging. “He still has some left who don’t treat him like a traitor.”

“Friendship over tradition,” Clarke remarked, and Octavia nodded. 

After a few moments of silence, Octavia said abruptly, “And I visited Camp Jaha today.”

Clarke felt uncomfortable, but tried not to show it, continuing to carefully pull the roasted chestnuts away from the fire, push the unroasted ones toward it.

“Poor Bellamy,” Octavia continued. “He just wants to keep his head down and follow the Chancellors’ orders. It doesn’t really suit him.”

Clarke didn’t say anything.

“Your mom and Kane are co-Chancellors now, did you know that?” Octavia asked.

Clarke shook her head, but it didn’t surprise her. She’d always figured her mom wasn’t one for hoarding power when it wasn’t necessary. She also wasn’t one to risk losing an election, though, Clarke thought ruefully.

“A lot of the kids still go to Bellamy,” Octavia said. “Ask him for advice, to resolve arguments, stuff like that.”

“He’s good at that,” Clarke said. “He can see right to what people want. And need.”

“Yeah,” Octavia agreed, looking over at her curiously. “But his heart isn’t really in it.”

Clarke picked up one of the cooled chestnuts, peeled it, blew on it, and ate it. It was good. 

“I think he misses you,” Octavia said softly, gently. 

Without thinking about it, unable to help herself, Clarke said back, “I miss him too.”

Octavia hugged her knees to her chest, laid her cheek on her knees and stared at Clarke sideways. “Were you into him?” she asked.

Clarke smiled. It felt like such trivial gossip, reminding her of similar conversations with her friends back on the Ark when she was twelve.

“He’s...” Clarke trailed off, trying to find the right words. “No, not romantically. No. Things feel steady when he’s there. I mean, when we first landed, he was awful--I can’t believe we didn’t all kill each other, and he definitely made things unsteady then--but he changed a lot.”

“Yeah,” Octavia said. “He ... I think he was ... I’ve seen Bellamy scared before, like really scared, and it was like that again. He panics and tries to control it with bravado and aggression.” She made a tiny movement in her shoulders, a half-shrug.

“I mean, he was a pretty big asshole too,” Clarke pointed out, and Octavia snorted.

“Yeah, I remember.” She reached out a hand and flexed her fingers at the chestnuts. Clarke put one in her hand. Octavia peeled it and chewed half of it. “You made him stop being afraid, you know. For the longest time it was me and him and Mom against everyone else. He didn’t make friends because he’d have to come up with excuses for them not to come over to our apartment, so it was just us... and then they killed Mom...” Octavia paused, and Clarke saw her fighting to keep from crying. She waited, and after a few seconds Octavia ate the other half of the chestnut and shuddered, then kept on: “Then he shot the Chancellor and we came down here and it was just him and me against everyone else. I don’t think he saw any other way. You made him see.”

“Made him see what?” Clarke asked.

Octavia furrowed her brow. “That he didn’t have to be alone anymore. That he didn’t have to wallow in his stupid shit anymore. That he had allies ... friends. Or, you know,  _a_  friend.” She relaxed, lifted her head up, looked into the fire. “And when Bellamy’s on your team, he’s all in.”

Clarke laughed softly. “Yeah, I’ve gotten that.”

“So why did you leave?” Octavia asked. She didn’t sound accusatory, just curious. Clarke sighed, knowing it was an honest question.

“I guess ... I reached a point where even with him right next to me I didn’t feel steady anymore. I couldn’t ... I just couldn’t, anymore. I felt like I was coming apart, and I needed to be away from people.”

Octavia leaned away a little, raising an eyebrow. “Did Lincoln and I ruin that?”

Clarke shook her head. “I was going stir crazy by the time Lincoln showed up that first time anyway. And you guys ... you don’t push me? Like ... sometimes with the others it was like they expected me to always have the answer and be in charge and it was just ...”

“Exhausting,” Octavia said.

“Yeah,” Clarke agreed. 

“You sound like Bellamy,” Octavia murmured, and then giggled. Clarke rolled her eyes, but grinned.

She thought they would talk more after that, but Octavia just ate a few more chestnuts, and then scooted over and leaned against Clarke, resting her head on Clarke’s shoulder and closing her eyes. 

Clarke smiled. She thought about what Octavia had said about Bellamy. She did miss him, though not in the urgent, desperate way she’d missed him when he was infiltrating Mount Weather and she couldn’t know if he was alive or not, and everything depended on him and he wasn’t even there to reassure her it would all be okay. This was more of an ache, or an itch, something she didn’t notice until she thought about it. 

She liked the idea that he was the unwilling peacekeeper and counselor of the others they’d come down with. It was a role that became him. She wondered if he was exhausted, too, like she had been, or if he was more suited to bearing their burdens, having grown up carrying the burden of the secret of Octavia.

Clarke finished off the chestnuts, and carefully and slowly moved from the log down to the sand, supporting Octavia and bringing her down too, supporting her head until she was lying out full on the sand. Clarke stretched out next to her, looking up at the stars, wondering if in another hundred years anyone would remember the day her people fell from the sky.

\--

When she woke up, she and Octavia were curled around each other on the sand in front of the fire. The first streaks of daylight were appearing on the horizon. Clarke stretched, feeling her back crack, and settled back down. Octavia was warm against her side. Clarke fell back asleep.

What must have been an hour or two later, she woke again to the sound of a low chuckle overhead. She cracked her eyes open and saw Lincoln standing over them, grinning widely. 

Octavia squirmed next to Clarke, then waved up at Lincoln. “Hey, you.”

“Hello, you,” he said, his gaze warm.

“You staying up there or coming down here?” Octavia asked, teasingly. 

A bolt of electricity shot through Clarke at the suggestion, and she glanced over at Octavia, wondering if she was interpreting the situation right. 

Octavia looked back at her lazily, the hint of a challenge on her face. Looking up at Lincoln, she saw the heat in his expression--but also the question. It was up to her. Clarke felt stunned.

“I--” Clarke propped herself up on her elbows, feeling the fluttering in her chest, the tight panic forming. She couldn’t. Yet. “Will you show me how to make paint today, Lincoln? Where to find the right flowers and berries?”

He shifted his stance above them, becoming slightly less predatorial. “Of course,” he said. “Octavia, you’ll come too?”

“Sure I will,” she said, and reached a hand up. 

Lincoln leaned and extended both his hands down, one to each of them. Clarke matched Octavia’s grip, grabbing his wrist instead of his fingers. He wrapped his hand around both their wrists in turn, and hauled them up at the same time. Clarke was a little awed at his strength. 

“The red berries are too far for today,” he said. “But there are the right flowers for blue paint around the third bend in the river going that way.” 

He pointed in the direction of the river that ran closer to where he and Octavia lived. Clarke held back a snort, knowing what he was up to. She still felt raw, though, from her conversation with Octavia. And she couldn’t really believe they were offering what she thought they were offering, either. But she also felt an openness in her that hadn’t been there since she’d slid a knife into Finn’s stomach. 

So Clarke said, “Okay. And I’d ... I’d love to see some of your art, Lincoln. If we’re going to be near where you live.”

Octavia smiled at her, soft and sweet, not wide like Clarke had expected. She held out her hand, and Clarke took it. Lincoln picked up a double handful of sand and poured it over what was left of the fire. Then he led the way along the river, and Clarke and Octavia followed behind, hand in hand.

\---

It was a warm and sunny day, and Lincoln took them to the blue flowers, then beyond, to another spot where he said there was a fig tree growing. When they got there, it was past midday and had gotten hot. The sun beat down, and Octavia stripped off her jacket, tying it around her waist.

The place Lincoln had brought them to was clearly the dilapidated ruins of what was once a great house-- _mansion_ , Clarke thought, the word something she’d learned long, long ago in school. She remembered as a kid playing with Wells that they had a mansion, using couch cushions to build forts in her parents’ apartment.

The fig tree must have been part of an extensive garden, Clarke figured, seeing the traces of it even now among the forest that had grown in. Lincoln reached up and pulled three figs, heavy and ripe, off a branch. Clarke and Octavia took them silently and the three of them, as one, bit into the flesh of the fruit. In the shadow of the trees, it felt like a sacred rite. Clarke licked the juice from her lips.

Octavia and Lincoln watched her, and she blushed, but didn’t turn away. They finished eating the figs silently, relishing in the sweetness. Clarke couldn’t remember the last time she ate something so sweet and fresh. She thought,  _Maybe we should relocate Camp Jaha farther south, if fruit like this grows there._

Lincoln walked toward what looked like a small clearing in the trees, motioning for Clarke and Octavia to follow. As they got closer, Clarke saw a glint of ceramic through the brush. She realized after a few more steps that it was a circle of white and blue tile, with raised sides. 

In the middle of the circle there was a stone statue of a woman, with a toga carved around her waist but her breasts bare. Both her arms were cut off, the left one at the shoulder. She saw that this stone had been carved that way, without the arms, and realized this must be a copy of another statue that was broken long, long ago, long before the nuclear holocaust. She couldn’t decide if it was comforting or not, knowing that people had always destroyed beautiful things.

She looked and saw that Octavia and Lincoln had been here before, and they were showing her the statue, not taking it in new like she was. They were here for her benefit. Clarke thought she should feel like a third wheel around them, but they included her in their actions and energy. She felt a deep gratitude to them. 

Clarke whispered to them, feeling that speaking aloud would be wrong in this place, “Should we go?” 

Lincoln led the way again, picking a path through the woods a different way than they’d come. Clarke knew he was leading them to where he and Octavia lived together, and her heart quickened--but not in the scared, trapped way it had been since what happened at Mount Weather.

“So how do you make charcoal to draw with?” Clarke asked, to pass the time on the walk. 

“The wood has to be very dry,” Lincoln said. “I collect it and let it sit for a long time, then press it in metal and burn it. What’s left after it burns is charcoal. It’s very easy, but takes a while.”

“How long?” she asked. 

“At least a year to dry the wood,” he answered, and she almost stopped in surprise. 

“Who taught you how to make it?” she asked. “And the paint?”

“My mother,” Lincoln said. “She painted, like you.”

Clarke heard the past tense in  _painted_ , and saw Octavia rest her hand on Lincoln’s back for a moment as they walked on. 

She didn’t realize when they’d arrived. Octavia stood by a tree and carefully pried the bark with her fingers. Clarke didn’t understand what she was doing until a large section of the bark near the base came away, and she saw that it was a hidden door concealing the hollow of the tree trunk, so much like her own. Lincoln laughed at her expression.

“Yes, we thought it was funny you found your home in a tree too.”

“This isn’t where you lived before--” Clarke wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence, not knowing how to encapsulate all that had happened since she and the others had first captured Lincoln. “--Before?”

“It wasn’t safe anymore,” he said. “So I moved.”

“ _We_  moved,” Octavia said, and he smiled at her. 

Octavia slid into the opening of the trunk and then abruptly disappeared. Clarke ducked to see where she’d gone, and realized there was an opening in the ground in the hollow that must lead to an underground cave. 

“How did you even  _find_  this?” she asked Lincoln. “It’s so well-hidden.”

"I did a lot of exploring by myself when I was small,” he said. “This was always my best hiding spot.”

“Thank you for ... for trusting me with this.”

“We’d like to trust you with more, if you want,” he said off-handedly, in a casual way that didn’t fool Clarke for a second.

“Hmm,” she said, trying to sound non-committal, but her heart was speeding up again, in the good way that so far hadn’t led to a panic attack.

Lincoln studied her for several seconds, and took a half step back. “Do you want to come inside?” he asked. 

Clarke knew it was an invitation for more than just a tour of their home. And she realized she wanted to say yes.

“I’d like to,” she murmured. He held out a hand, which she took, and then he supported her as she knelt into the hollow, sliding her legs down the hole. 

“There’s a ladder against the wall in front of your feet,” she heard Octavia’s voice from inside.

Clarke found the rungs of it easily, climbing down without trouble. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the relative darkness of the cave--it was lit with only half a dozen torches. 

“Do you have an exhaust for the torch smoke?” she asked.

“Yes,” Lincoln said, landing abruptly behind her. 

She laughed, mostly at herself. “Sorry, kind of a stupid question.”

Her eyes finally adjusted and she looked around. There was a single large room that they were standing in, plus a few hollows at the base of one of the walls, where it looked like Lincoln and Octavia stored their food and other supplies, like rope and kindle. Against one wall there was a bench, clearly made by Lincoln and not a relic from before, that had a long row of books on it. Clarke made her way over immediately and kneeled down to try to read the titles on the spines. One of them was a dictionary, she could see. 

“Where did you get these?” she asked, looking back at Lincoln.

“I collect them,” he said. “My mom collected them too.”

Clarke stood back up, looking at the other walls. There were racks of weapons--mainly spears and knives--and then racks of art supplies. There were several of Lincoln’s drawings and paintings hung up on the walls, suspended by twine hung over sharp corners of the rock face. Clarke guessed Octavia had been the one to decorate. Lincoln didn’t seem like he’d hang up his own work. But she did see her painting of Octavia, hung up in a place of honor like Octavia had said, near the ladder entrance.

What dominated the floor was a pile of three big furs laid out, with feather-stuffed sacks at the head, by the wall. Clearly the bed. Clarke felt a blush run up from her neck to her cheeks. She was glad that in the dark of the torchlight they couldn’t see it.

Lincoln and Octavia were standing next to each other, just watching her. 

“This is really nice,” she said, trying to cover her awkwardness.

“Thank you,” Lincoln replied. 

After a beat of silence, Octavia said, “Clarke ... Lincoln and I ...” She broke off, looking at Lincoln. He smiled at her encouragingly and took her hand. She tried again, “Lincoln and I are a, um ... how do I say this? The two of us, we make a circle together.”

“Each the other’s half,” Clarke said, echoing the thought she’d had two days before.

“Yeah,” Octavia said, sounding surprised but pleased by the phrasing. “And it’s a complete circle, for us, in terms of ... the love we have for each other. The relationship we have together.”

“Oh,” Clarke said, not sure how to respond. Had she totally misread their intent?

“But--uh, that doesn’t mean that the two of us--together--that the two of us aren’t interested in ... ah,  _sharing_  ... with someone else, sometimes.”

Clarke frowned. “You mean...?”

Lincoln interrupted, “Octavia and I want to know if you will go to bed with us.”

Octavia looked at him in panic, utterly mortified, and then slumped.  _“Oh my god.”_

Clarke stared at them, and then burst out laughing. 

“She’s not interested,” Octavia said, a little miserably, looking up at Lincoln. 

“Octavia, Lincoln...” Clarke formulated her thoughts. “I ... I feel really safe with you two. Like,  _really_  safe. Like not just that I think the two of you could probably kill pretty much any threat that came at us ... but you’re ... so easy to be around. And ... you’re both really, really attractive and I ... I, uh, I’ve definitely been thinking about it.” She paused. “Wanting, too, really.”

“I told you!” Lincoln crowed, grinning at Octavia. “You worry too much.”

“I mean,” Clarke said, “you haven’t exactly been subtle about it.”

Octavia peered at Lincoln suspiciously. “What did you say to her?” 

He smiled impassively, shrugging. Clarke realized at once that she was as close to Lincoln as she was to Octavia. She wondered, feeling pleased and warm, when that had happened. It put her at ease, completely, finding that she had an equal part in this--it wasn’t her and them. It was the three of them, together.

“Whose idea was it?” she asked Lincoln, knowing the answer. 

“Octavia’s been curious,” he said, rolling his shoulders back. “Grounders don’t have a taboo about sharing beds. More people in the family makes the family stronger. Stronger bloodlines. Healthier. More hands to fight, too, if we need to.”

Octavia smiled sidelong at Clarke. “It made me wonder what it would be like ... to share Lincoln with someone. He’s so...” She rolled her eyes and grinned up at him. “Well, I don’t want to inflate his ego too much.”

“No, please, go on,” he said, trying and failing to keep his tone objective, scientific. “Clarke should hear your full explanation.”

Octavia huffed out a laugh and shoved him playfully. “You jerk.” She glanced back at Clarke. “But seriously, he’s ... worth sharing.” She winked.

"And what about you?” Clarke asked, the words out of her mouth before she knew it. She blushed, looked down.

Lincoln chuckled, low and dark and warm. “Oh, she’s worth sharing too.” 

Octavia took half a step forward, and put out her hand for Clarke to take, her other hand still entwined with Lincoln’s. Clarke hesitated, just half a second, and then Lincoln put his other hand out too, and that was what she’d been waiting for, without knowing it. She placed her hands in theirs and let herself be pulled gently to the bed. 

“Can I kiss you?” Octavia asked. 

Clarke’s mouth fell open, and Octavia’s eyes flitted down to zero in on her lips. There was a palpable tension in the air between them, and Clarke felt like she was being pulled by a string toward Octavia. She took a sudden, jerking half-step forward, and it was as if this was the signal: Octavia closed the gap and kissed her urgently, bringing her hands up to fist in the lapels of Clarke’s jacket. Clarke worked hard not to melt against her. She brought her own fists up and grabbed Octavia’s jacket sleeves, pulling them down roughly over her shoulders. Octavia dropped her arms and wiggled so the jacket fell to the bed, then in turn pulled Clarke’s jacket off her. 

In unison they pulled their tunics off over their heads and to the floor, and the mirror image was so exact--so absurdly in tandem--that both of them froze, staring at each other, and then broke down giggling, gasping. 

“You--” Octavia pointed at Clarke and shook her head, her face red and laughing smile huge.

Clarke helplessly grabbed Octavia’s hand as they shook with laughter. It felt amazing to laugh so hard. Clarke couldn’t remember the last time she laughed so much it was hard to take a breath. 

Lincoln chuckled and rested a warm hand on Clarke’s waist, ducking his head in to nose at her neck, while both she and Octavia worked their trousers off. Her fingers fumbled over the laces when Lincoln nipped at her skin and nuzzled his stubble against her. She reached a hand out to curl around his wrist loosely, drawing his body closer to her, but she became distracted when Octavia’s hands tugged at her ankles to pull her trousers down. 

Octavia had already disposed of her clothes somehow and it was clear she was eager for Clarke to do the same. Clarke grinned and complied, shimmying the pants down her legs and stepping out of them, and Octavia ran her hands up and down the backs of Clarke’s calves, the friction sending sparks up Clarke’s body. Her knees buckled, and Lincoln helped ease her down onto the bed. Clarke lay back against the thick furs and then glanced down to where Octavia and Lincoln were kneeling at her feet. Lincoln was shedding his own clothes, leaving just his underwear on, but Clarke could see the outline of his cock pressing against the fabric. 

“What now?” she asked, smiling. 

Octavia shared a knowing look with Lincoln, and tilted her head toward Clarke. “You really ...  _really_  need to experience the best of Lincoln. And I can kiss you again?” 

“Please,” Clarke murmured, reaching her hands toward Octavia to help pull her up. 

Octavia’s lips on hers were hesitant at first, but quickly eager and practiced. She was warm and soft and everything Clarke liked in kissing, hands twining into Clarke’s hair and her teeth pulling gently on Clarke’s lower lip every so often. She could stay like that forever, head cradled in Octavia’s hands and Octavia’s lips gentle and sweet on hers, and then ...

Then she felt Lincoln’s hands on her knees, ever-so-carefully nudging her legs apart. Clarke’s eyelids fluttered as she let her knees fall apart, allowing Lincoln to crawl into the gap left. She breathlessly broke off from kissing Octavia’s jawbone to look down at Lincoln, who was staring back at her for permission. 

“ _God_ , yes,” she said to him, and Octavia giggled against her cheek, pressing a few kisses at the cheekbone under her right eye. 

Lincoln kissed up the inside of Clarke’s thigh, one hand slipping up so his thumb and forefinger rested securely against her cunt. He pressed the pad of his thumb gently against her clit as he kissed up the other thigh, and then spread her a little farther open with his hand before licking a path up her labia. Clarke shuddered and bucked, relishing the way Octavia laughed against her knowingly and let her hands play down her chest to stroke at the skin under her breasts.

Lincoln hummed into her flesh and then licked again, wet and heavy up and over her clit, again and again. Clarke whined in the back of her throat as Octavia kissed at the side of her mouth and let her fingers twist and pull in Clarke’s hair. Lincoln was thorough and knowledgable, and Clarke was moaning loudly in just a couple minutes, trying not to put a hand down to lock his face against her. 

He knew exactly what he was doing, keeping up a steady rhythm against her clit while his thumb slipped inside her. The addition of his forefinger left Clarke gasping, helplessly rutting against his mouth, wondering what it would feel like if he was inside her. Imagining Lincoln fucking her brought her right up to the edge, but it was the thought of her watching Lincoln fuck Octavia that sent Clarke into orgasm, whimpering and rocking jerkily, one hand shooting down to hold Lincoln in place while Octavia’s hands held her steady. 

“Oh my god, oh my god,  _oh my god,”_  Clarke chanted, her eyes rolling back in her head as she tried to catch her breath. Octavia sucked a hickey onto her collarbone while Lincoln kissed soothingly at a spot in the crease of her hip. She felt caught between them, in the most safe and secure way possible. It was as if her body started where Lincoln’s lips pressed against her and ended where Octavia’s teeth grazed her skin.

“Okay?” Octavia asked softly against Clarke’s clavicle, and Clarke nodded, laughing high and free. 

 _“So_  okay,” Clarke replied, cupping Octavia’s face in her palms and bringing it up so she could kiss her on the lips again. She felt Octavia’s lips curl into a smile, and then she pulled back and said, 

“Then it’s  _my_  turn.”

Clarke nodded, thinking Octavia meant get eaten out by Lincoln now, because what a blissful, incredible, amazing experience ... but instead Octavia moved down to between Clarke’s thighs, and Clarke realized. 

“Oh no,” Clarke said, her knees drawing closer together. Octavia’s brow furrowed, and she looked concerned and hurt at the rejection, but Clarke just laughed, and sat up a little, propping her elbows up underneath her. “I’m definitely not ready to go again, but ... I’d ... I’d be really into watching you guys. And then I could probably go again.” 

At the heat she saw in the look Octavia and Lincoln shared at her words, Clarke stammered, then grinned: “Oh, I will  _definitely_  be able to go again.”

Octavia turned around and lay down beside Clarke as Lincoln nudged off his underwear, his cock hanging heavy, hard and dripping pre-cum. Clarke didn’t dare blink as he crawled up and over Octavia, and the moan Octavia gave when he pushed into her matched Clarke’s own. 

\---

In a quiet moment, Octavia asleep nestled in the crook of her arm and Lincoln sitting down at the end of the furs gently massaging first her feet and then Octavia’s, Clarke’s eyes wandered around the room. Her gaze settled on a charcoal drawing of several Grounders, their faces laughing and happy. She wondered if they had sat for Lincoln or if he had drawn them from memory.

“Do you ever miss your people?” she whispered to Lincoln, and he glanced up, his face soft and open.

“My people?”

“I know you see friends from your village sometimes, but don’t you miss living there with them?”

Lincoln smiled, tilted his head and pressed his hand against the arch of her foot. It felt amazing and she gasped in appreciation. He lifted her foot and kissed the heel. “You are my people,” he said, gesturing with his head at both her and Octavia.

Clarke remembered saying the same words to Lincoln on a cold terrible day weeks ago before shooting a bullet through his shoulder to the Mountain Man holding a knife to his throat. Later that day she wasn’t sure she’d do it again. Now she knew. She would do it again and again and again. Every time she would choose to save Lincoln. And Octavia. And Bellamy, and Monty, and Jasper...

A warmth filled her, and she wiggled her toes in Lincoln’s hands. He chuckled and crawled up the bed toward her, collapsing halfway and laying his head on her stomach. His breath was warm on her tummy, tickling the little soft hairs sticking up. His arm stretched over her so his hand rested firmly in the curve of Octavia’s waist, tucked up against Clarke’s side. 

Clarke sighed a little, a happy sound, and a wave of drowsiness washed over her. She felt Lincoln’s eyelashes brush against her and knew his eyes had closed. “How did I get this lucky?” she murmured, and he grinned against her stomach. 

“We  _all_  got lucky,” he said softly.

\---

When they crawled out of bed a couple hours later, nothing had changed, really. Clarke was so grateful for this friendship that had now extended to include physical intimacy. It felt easy, effortless. 

She didn’t feel right leaving her tree alone for the night, unprotected as it was, and Octavia walked her back while Lincoln went hunting. 

“That was fun,” Octavia said, and Clarke nodded. 

“Will we do that again?” she asked, unable to keep the note of hope out of her voice.

“Of course,” Octavia replied, grinning wide, slipping her arm around Clarke’s. “I think we’d be idiots not to enjoy a good thing while we’ve got it.”

\---

Another week passed like that, filled with light and love and Octavia and Lincoln. They played together, hunted together, ate together, slept together. Clarke had never felt more relaxed and comfortable in her skin as she did now. She began wondering if it was time to go back to Camp Jaha, to see her mom again. To see Raven and Monty and Jasper and the other kids again. To see Bellamy again, especially. She missed the push-pull they had, the odd harmony they found in each other’s ideas and decisions. 

She was exasperated that, despite herself, she missed a challenge. The emptiness and loneliness that had consumed her since the Mountain was replaced with the camaraderie and warmth of her days now, not just spent with Octavia and Lincoln, but also spent building traps and cooking meals and gathering supplies to make art. She felt good. Whole. 

One brisk morning, three months to the day after she left Camp Jaha and walked away, Clarke was still asleep as the sun came up. Curled up in the trunk, she was relaxed and happy and dreaming of wide fields filled with flowers, but she woke up to the crunch of boots on the dry leaves she’d laid at the perimeter of what she considered her home area. She shot up and staggered out of the trunk in the span of three seconds. 

It was Bellamy. 

“Hey,” he said, and she stared dumbly back at him for several seconds before fully recognizing it was him. 

He looked different than the last time she’d seen him. He looked more at home in his skin, and somehow wider and taller without being imposing. She wondered if it was how he held his shoulders: a heavy burden that she only now realized had been lying there looked like it was gone. There was something about him that felt stiff, though--as if he was perpetually holding his breath. She wondered what he was waiting for.

After a startled moment of staring, Clarke closed the gap between him and flung her arms around his shoulders, hugging him tight. She felt his arms wrapping around her too, warm and all-encompassing. 

“Hey,” she finally said back, then released her grip and stood back, taking the image of him in. “It’s been a long time.”

“It has,” he replied, and she noted he was careful not to sound accusatory, not to sound petty or bitter. She appreciated it. She had been the one to leave.

“I’m sorry I--”

“I know,” he said, and tilted his head to the side. “But seeing you now, I get why you left.”

“Oh?”

“You look good,” Bellamy said. “You look ... well, you don’t look like you did before.”

She huffed a laugh, scuffed her foot in the dirt a little. “I’ve been ... happy. Really happy.”

“We weren’t really before, huh?” Bellamy asked, and she was grateful for the  _we_. They were still a team, despite everything. 

“No,” she said softly, the word coming out more introspective than she had meant it. “We really weren’t.”

Bellamy looked around her tree, then at the fire pit, and the paintings she’d left sitting in the sand there. “Octavia said you’ve been spending time together.”

Clarke raised an eyebrow and snorted. “What all did she tell you?”

He caught her eye, smiled small. “I think everything, if what you’ve been doing is ... everything.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re okay with it?”

“Just no details, please,” he said, wincing.

“But it doesn’t bother you?”

Bellamy huffed a laugh and smiled self-effacingly. “It probably would have four months ago, but I’m now fully aware O’s her own person. More than any of us, really.”

Clarke looked down and nodded. Octavia had more independent spirit in her pinky finger than some of them had in their whole bodies.

“And Lincoln is...” 

Clarke glanced up and saw Bellamy with his head tilted quizzically, clearly searching for the right word.

“He’s kind,” she offered. “Generous.” 

Bellamy raised an eyebrow at that. “We’re treading a little too close to ‘no details please’ territory, here.”

Clarke laughed outright. “Well, I mean....” She flushed, remembering how Lincoln's mouth had felt on her, and quickly pushed it aside at the alarmed expression growing on Bellamy’s face. “I mean he helped me find things for making art. Showed me which berries make paint, how to turn wood into charcoal.”

“Oh,” said Bellamy. It was clear he hadn’t been expecting that. She watched as his face clouded with what she suspected was shame. He’d never really taken any time to get to know Lincoln, she realized. They probably hadn’t said more than a dozen words to each other outside of the mission to infiltrate Mount Weather.

“He’s deserving of her love,” Clarke said softly, reaching out to touch Bellamy’s hand with her own, her fingertips pressing lightly against the back of his hand. It was a gesture of sincerity to Clarke, not meant as more. “I promise that.”

He glanced away from her, something wavering in his expression. Before she could react, Bellamy’s hand moved under hers, twisting and twining his fingers with hers. He caught her eye. There was a haunted look there, a longing. He seemed carved from stone. It had always registered for her that Bellamy was attractive, with his well-formed face and compelling dark eyes, his broad shoulders topping a beautifully-proportioned body. Before this had seemed to her just a matter of fact, an artist’s observation of beauty. Now he melted under her gaze, his chiseled face softening, his stiffly-held frame loosening. He was as Galatea to her Pygmalion, a statue come to life. 

She felt stuck, the familiar panic fluttering in her chest, her breath going short. She didn’t know how to run away. Her feet couldn’t find the ground.

Bellamy studied her, now unreadable to her. “Thanks, princess,” he murmured, then let her hand go. “I’ll see you.” He backed away, giving her a soft smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes, before disappearing into the woods. 

\---

Octavia found her later in the woods, collecting tinder for the fire. She quietly fell into step with Clarke, picking up sticks and smaller branches Clarke missed. After a few minutes, Clarke said,

“Bellamy stopped by.”

“I know,” Octavia replied, her voice cautious. 

“Is he okay?” Clarke asked, stopping and turning to Octavia. She didn’t realize how strained her face must look until she saw the expression echoed in Octavia’s face. 

“I think he might be having a hard time,” Octavia said carefully. “Raven said he doesn’t have dinner with her and Wick and Monty much anymore.”

Clarke started, caught off-guard. “The four of them eat dinner together?”

“Yeah,” Octavia said, a smile crossing her mouth briefly. “I think you come up in conversation a lot, to be honest.”

“Fuck,” Clarke breathed.  _I miss them._

“Your mom asks me about you too,” Octavia continued. “She misses you but I think ... more than any of the others ... she really gets why you left.”

Clarke smiled soft, glancing down at the leaf-covered ground. Winter was on the way. It was going to be hard, their first. Too bad the alliance with Lexa’s people hadn’t lasted or they could have swapped food for medicine, probably. Maybe she could still form some kind of peacetime agreement with them, if she could talk to Lexa. Clarke sighed, knowing what it meant that she was strategizing again.

“It might be time to go back,” she admitted to Octavia, hating the words as they came out of her mouth, but knowing they were true. 

Octavia glanced sideways at her. “You don’t sound super excited about the idea.”

Clarke laughed outright. “Three pretty idyllic months will do that to you.”

Octavia reached out and held Clarke’s hand. “Lincoln and I will still be here, you know. The way we feel won’t change if you go back.”

“Mm,” Clarke replied, and pulled Octavia in for a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thank you. I guess ... a part of me does really want to go back, get into things, help out. Another part of me is glad to not be dealing with the stupid politics and petty drama anymore.”

Octavia nodded, and after a quiet few minutes they continued on picking up sticks and branches. When both their arms were full, they headed back to her tree.  _Her_  tree. Clarke wondered if she could still call it hers, if she left it. If she could come back, if she needed to. The thought of returning made her feel better.

After they finished piling the tinder carefully beyond the circle of rocks around the fire, Octavia straightened up and put her hands on her hips, turning to Clarke. She said all at once, as if she’d been waiting to say it for hours: “Okay, are we going to talk about your reaction to Bellamy earlier?”

“What do you mean?” asked Clarke, her stomach dropping. 

“He said you freaked out a little and then he perfectly described the panic attacks you used to have.” Octavia furrowed her brow, and reached a hand to touch Clarke’s wrist. “Are  _you_  okay?”

Clarke frowned and thought for a few seconds about how to respond. Finally she tried, “Do you remember that night when you asked me if I was into Bellamy?”

Octavia snorted. “Yeah.”

“And I said no.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

Clarke heaved a sigh, then sat down on one of the rocks that circled the fire pit. Octavia sat next to her. “I do love him, but not in that stupid way that usually gets me into trouble? Like ... with Finn or with ...” Clarke rolled her head back, realizing she hadn’t admitted this out loud, let alone to Octavia. “With Lexa.”

“Whooooa.” Octavia whistled low. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, we ... had a moment. Several moments,” Clarke replied, dropping her head to her knees and playing with the sand next to her feet. “With them I had a hard time thinking clearly. But Bellamy ... he brings things into focus. Keeps me sharp. I love him in the way I love you and Lincoln. I’m not  _in love_  with you like you and Lincoln are, or like ... Raven and Wick. Or my parents were.” 

“So what’s the problem?” Octavia asked softly. 

Clarke shrugged lightly. “I’m not sure? My body had a reaction and I’m not sure why.”

Octavia lay her hand on Clarke’s back, rubbing gently in small circles. “You want to come back to ours tonight? Not for anything if you don’t want to, just to sleep?”

Clarke looked up at her and smiled. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

That night they all made dinner together, laughing and fighting over the best bits of the meat, and Clarke felt the tight fist that had somehow formed inside her ribcage unclench. She told them about wanting to keep the tree for herself and Lincoln nodded briskly. 

“I can make a door. There’s a tree that came down in a storm last week across the river the same size as yours. A little work and part of its trunk will conceal the hollow. Animals won’t even get in."

“And you can leave your paint and charcoal here, if you want,” Octavia offered. “And come whenever you want to get them. Unless you want to take them to Camp Jaha.”

“No, that’s...” Her throat tightened, and she worked not to cry. “That would be really nice. To keep it a secret place.”

“The fire circle could be left,” Lincoln said speculatively. “The other Sky People will think it belongs to Grounders if they find it.”

“How did Bellamy find it?” Clarke asked. “Did one of you ...”

Octavia winced and raised a hand. “In my defense, he was being really persuasive.”

“I don’t mind,” Clarke said, not realizing it was true until she’d said it out loud. She didn’t mind. “As long as it’s just him.”

“Just him,” Octavia promised. 

“Well then,” Clarke replied, and snuck her hand into their communal plate again for the juicy piece of turkey skin she’d just seen.

\---

Two days later, an hour after sunrise, Clarke was nibbling on chestnuts for breakfast, sitting on a rock at the bank of the river, her bare legs dipped in the water. When she first found the tree she’d been too scared to do this, afraid of the water snakes, but she knew they didn’t frequent the shallows here, and at any rate she could spot them coming now. She’d learned a lot in three months. 

She heard footsteps coming through the woods and twisted to see who it was, unsurprised when she saw Bellamy slowly making his way toward her. He looked up and saw her looking. Clarke waved. After half a second he waved back, and a few seconds after that stood over her. 

“Sit,” she instructed, patting the rock on the other side of her pile of chestnuts. 

Bellamy studied the place she’d pat for a second and then leaned over to unlace his boots and roll up his pants cuffs. He sat down next to her and let his feet sink into the water, making a small sound of satisfaction.

“Eat,” Clarke said, gesturing at the chestnuts. 

Bellamy tilted his head at her then complied, popping one of the chestnuts into his mouth.

“Did you talk to Octavia?” Clarke asked. 

Bellamy cleared his throat. “She said I needed to talk to you.”

“Hmm.” Clarke leaned back, looking up at the bright blue sky. “I never thought I’d be  _here_  a year ago,” she said. “Feet in the water, sky overhead.”

“Ass on the ground,” Bellamy added. 

She glanced at him and grinned. “That too.”

He leaned over and put his hands in the water, watching the way it rushed over and around them. “Are you thinking about coming back to Camp Jaha?” he asked, not looking at her.

“Thinking about it,” she said flippantly. 

“I’d like if you did,” he said quietly to the river, and Clarke’s voice caught in her throat. At her silence, he kept talking: “I was pretty mad when you left, you know ... Monty especially endured a lot of complaining.” 

Clarke snorted, but frowned. “I didn’t know.”

“I would have left, too, I think,” he said almost absently, then added, “if it wouldn’t have felt like I was chasing you.”

“Bellamy...”

“Please come back,” Bellamy said, turning to her. He pulled his hands out of the water and took one of hers in them. “We need you.”

She pulled her hand away and sighed. “I don’t think I can give you what you want.”

“So you don’t want to come back,” he said flatly.

“I do,” Clarke said. She turned to him, looked him square on. “I can’t give  _you_  what you want.”

“What do you think I want?” he asked, surprised. “I just want ... us side by side. Making decisions together, like we used to. It’s ... hard by myself. I don’t know if I’m doing anything right.”

She stared at him, mouth open. “You’re not ... this isn’t romantic, for you?”

He looked at her like she'd just grown another head. “I don’t think I’d use the word romantic. Ever, really.” He squinted, looking out across the river. “Anyway, that stuff is all just ... way too complicated to parse out. We really don’t need to talk about it.”

“To parse out,” she repeated quietly, testing the idea. 

He looked a little panicky, started to stand up. “Seriously, we don’t--”

“Okay,” Clarke said. 

Bellamy stopped where he was, slowly lowering himself back down onto the rock, but kept his feet pulled up so he was sitting cross-legged. 

“Okay?” 

Clarke laughed, feeling free and light. “I’ll come back. Let’s parse it out. Let’s get dinner with Raven and Wick and Monty and convince my mom and Kane not to do anything stupid and figure out how to make a deal with Lexa for food for the winter. Let’s hunt with Octavia and Lincoln. Find new places to settle, learn how to build places to live that aren’t the inside of a broken ship.”

“It’s not that broken, really,” Bellamy interjected. “Raven can fix anything.”

“Good,” Clarke said, and she felt energetic. Ready. Excited. 

“So--”

“Parse it out,” Clarke said again, knowing she should keep going while she had the momentum. “Yeah. We need to talk. I ... I like you more than I like other people, and I’ve felt a space beside me these three months that was empty because you weren’t in it. But I also don’t ...  _love you?”_ she finished, cringing at the words. 

Bellamy made a face at her. “Oh my god, are you thirteen? Jesus, Clarke. I like you too. A lot. We don’t need to pick flowers for each other.” 

Clarke wasn’t sure if he was explicitly referencing the way Lincoln and Octavia picked white flowers for each other and left them all over, but it made her laugh. “Are you my best friend?” she asked, craning her neck to look at him. “Is  _that_  what this is?”

Bellamy groaned, an exasperated sound that Clarke knew was inwardly directed. “Ugh, I don’t know. I think there’s more than that. Does it matter that much, how we define... this?” He waved his hand back and forth between them. “Just come back. I need you back.” 

He winked at her, but there was a hint of that look she’d seen before, when he had grabbed her hand and melted under her gaze. It was a longing. For her. But not in the way she had thought. She realized the panic she’d felt had been at the worry and fear he would want to change their relationship in a fundamental way that she wasn’t capable of, that would probably ruin the careful balance their dynamic relied on. It was an immense relief to find out that she’d been so utterly, totally wrong. 

“I missed you,” she said, because it felt like the right thing to say. 

It was. He put his hand over hers, and gave her a smile. “I missed you too.”

She squeezed his hand, and pulled her legs out of the river, then stood up. She pulled him up after her. “All right,” she said, decisively, looking around at the tree, the fire pit, the tinder piled by it. She had no more belongings that weren’t either squirreled away at Lincoln and Octavia’s or already on her body. She dried her feet with her jacket sleeve and tucked them into her shoes. “Let’s go.”

Bellamy put his feet back into his boots and laced them up, pushed the cuffs down, and walked half a dozen paces in the direction of Camp Jaha. He looked back, and held out his hand to her. 

She looked behind her once more at the river, and then turned to him, and followed. 

**Author's Note:**

> In my head there is likely a companion piece to this about Bellamy working through his own issues with the help of Raven, Wick, and Monty, but I don't think I'm going to write it. 
> 
> I read Clarke as greyromantic, I guess, in that I acknowledge that she was in romantic love with Finn and Lexa, but she has deep platonic feelings for Bellamy that go beyond friendship but don't extend to romance. I myself am aromantic and probably projected a lot on Clarke, so apologies if that felt ooc to anyone. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this. It was certainly a labor of love--it took me four months.


End file.
